Dr. Schwaner has published a new paper on guinea fowl walking in the journal Integrative and Comparative Biology, as the first paper on our ongoing collaboration with Dr. Kiisa Nishikawa at Northern Arizona University investigating muscle dynamics and control of movement in non-steady locomotion. The paper can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icac057 Or access the uncorrected…

BirdBot is a bipedal robot designed as a physical test of our hypothesis for the structure and function of the lower leg and multi-articular tendon system in walking and running ground birds.  Birdbot’s leg design enables mechanical control of foot-ground interactions and stance-swing transitions.  The lower leg multi-tendon network stores elastic energy during stance and…

Brooke Christensen has published a new research paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology, ‘Elastic energy storage across speeds during steady-state hopping of desert kangaroo rats (Dipdomys desert). https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.242954 Using species-specific elastic modulus values, Christensen et al. reveal that the ankle extensor tendons of these small bipedal hoppers cycle elastic energy in proportion to hopping speed, storing…

Monica Daley acted as a guest co-editor for a Special Feature collection in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, in collaboration with Andrew Biewener,  Richard Bomphrey, and Auke Ijspeert. The Special Feature brings together 13 articles on movement dynamics spanning topics from insect flight control to human mobility assistance and bio-inspired robotics. See: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/topic/special-collections/animal-movement …